Treehouse of Horror XXII: Hanged to the Rafters
by sabrina-diamond
Summary: Bartholomew, an aspiring actor, finds that show business can be deadly as an ancient drone takes centre-stage oneshot ... Based on a purely creepy nightmare I had a few days ago.


_**Treehouse of Horror XXII**_

_Hanged to the Rafters:_

Hilden's Play's them Hang

Bartholomew, a teenage actor was at the old abandoned theatre where they performed ancient plays by William Shakespeare and for some reason the Springfieldian Actors decided to audition for Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein._ Bart thought it was extremely odd, that no-one else had attempted or bothered to do this play, but since he was in the leading role, he felt obliged to perform in front of a neutral audience. He dusted his antique crimson jacket, the long sleeves catching on his buttoned wrist as he lit a candle, and climbed the wooden platform to practice. His blond hair normally spiky was combed down to suit the guise of Victor Frankenstein, and the actor had an incurious look as he rounded the stairway. He paused. Something wasn't right. He could feel it in his cold veins, filling him with dread as he progressed. At last, he reacted the end of the rickety wooden stairway, and he gasped.

For there in front of him were the old decayed actors of yonder, strangled. He could recognise Montgomery Burns Snr, the rounded baldening skull still intact, and on yet another dreaded stair, the fallen body of his belated understudy - the crimson dressed Lizabeth, and more bloodied actors, still clothed in their acting garments and gored with all due respects. Batholomew stumbled away, who could have committed such an act of treachery? Who could've done such a thing? He turned to run, but there in the gloom and shadowy passageway, there was someone waiting for the trap to be sprung. And sprung it did. He felt long awaited fingers at his throat, as the fat chubby fingers of the murderer tightened and the poor actor spun around, to glimpse the long brown coat upon a fat, seemingly jolly gentleman, the globules of his heavy lidded eyes narrowing. It was a trick, a deceivery.

The fat madman choltred, seemingly in relief at finding an audience to display his handiwork. At this, out of nowhere a movie projector came out of the mists.

It was your typical scenario, just as Bartholomew was drawn to two figures: The fat madman in his festive glory acting as his part as Frankenstein's monster, the monstrous green recognisable mask hiding his flaws. And in his arms was a brown-wigged actress as he realised Marjorie in full deck, her blue hair familiar as they danced to the tune of a faraway past. They were performing the last dance of the act. Suddenly out of the audience, there was a stunned silence and a dagger was drawn and struck the poor Marjorie between her shoulder-blades. The gore was horrible.

Confused, the fully haired actor (once respectable), looked around for the assailant and roared his venegence, cuffing the assailant and they both fell into onscreen darkness, fading. The black and white reel ended at this point.

"The name is Homerectus Horatio," the madman spoke with glee, raising an accusing fattening cholesterol-fuelled finger at Bartholomew, "and you are a threat to my acting career." It was then that Bartholomew realised that the maniac was weilding a hangman's noose in his fingers, flipping it excitedly as he counted down his victims. Purple flowers decked the stage below, exotic frangipanis.

Homerectus did the act brutally and was about to throw Bartholomew to his death, but he decided to do the innocent actor a favour. The insane actor grinned wickedly, his chuckles wild and unrestrained. Grabbing a sack of glittering dust, he dumped it upon the poor boy, restricting the breathing to a wheeze. Frangipanis showered over the beams of the stage, as Horatio swung the noose above Bartholomew. Bartholomew's voice became high-pitched akin to inhaling laughing gas - except this was no laughing matter. Not at all. Noone was going to rescue him, only he and the madman were in the theatre...

As Horatio tightened the noose, Bartholomew soon swung above the rafters. He opened his mouth and began screaming in a terrible high pitched tone, the tone carrying over the spacious arena... Accompanied by Horatio's creepy chilling yet childish laughter...

"Upstage me will you?" Hortatio beamed in a childish fashion, "Thou be hanged if you do," The stage blackened out.


End file.
